August 13, 2024 • 42 mins
Today we are chatting about everything every birth photographer needs to know. We cover everything from the wild unpredictability of births to mastering your camera in challenging lighting.
We are talking about how being on call is both an art and a mental gymnastics routine, and dive into the nitty-gritty of marketing your birth photography business and why it's essential to know your camera inside out.
If you're passionate about capturing those transformative birth moments and want to build a sustainable, thriving business, join us! Registration opens August 19th, and we can't wait to connect with you. Check out more info on our website!
Catch you on the flip side!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, Monet. How are you? I'm good. I was at a birth all night last night, and so I'm tired.
I've had a string of overnight births beginning of August, so I'm really looking
forward to sleeping well tonight.
But yeah, it was a beautiful birth. The sunrise came up.
They had horses, so I got to go outside and see a horse as the sun was rising,
(00:22):
which was really special.
So even though I'm sleep-deprived, I feel really happy that I got to attend such a beautiful birth.
And yeah, the horse definitely was like the icing on the cake for me.
Yeah, that's really cool. Was it up in the mountains or was it somebody?
No, it was right in Denver.
So yeah, a horse in the city. So super special. Wild west out there. Yes, exactly.
(00:46):
All right. Well, today we're going to talk about what every birth photographer needs to know.
And there's a lot of things that Monet Monet and I have learned over the years,
and we're excited to share all of them with you.
Hi, it's Monet and Jen, and we are the co-founders of Birth Becomes You.
We are birth photographers and doulas with over 10 years of experience.
(01:07):
We've attended over 1,000 births collectively.
We started Birth Becomes You to create a safe space for new and experienced
birth photographers to share and grow. We aim to equip and empower birth workers
to feel confident in the birth space and take beautiful, world-changing images.
We believe in a world where birth is visible, where shame is absent,
(01:28):
where fear is translated to power, and where each individual's experience is
honored as valid and valued.
We are so glad you're here, and we can't wait to learn and connect with you.
So should we just jump in and get started? Let's jump in. All right.
I'll let you go first. Okay.
So I think, you know, when we work with new or beginning birth photographers.
(01:54):
A lot of the questions that we get, I think you'd agree, Jen,
have to do with understanding the birth process.
Like, when do I go to a birth? What does it mean? What does this contraction pattern mean?
And as someone who has been doing births now for 10 years, I think the number
one thing that I know about birth is that birth is wild and unpredictable and incredibly humbling.
(02:19):
I sometimes will make predictions based on my experience and what I've seen
and then my predictions are totally wrong and I either underestimate or overestimate
and so I feel like every time I go to a birth, I'm just completely like, wow,
like this is, there are patterns for sure.
But I think surprised just as often as I'm, as I'm like, wow,
(02:43):
I totally predicted that that was going to go this way. Don't you agree?
Yeah. And we talk about this all the time. Like, even though we've been doing
this for 10 years, it's really hard to know when to go to the birth because
you don't want to go too early and kind of interfere with early labor.
And you obviously don't want to go too late and miss it or being rushed,
like rushing into the room. So it is an art.
(03:06):
It's a skill. And it's a little bit of luck, I think, sometimes too.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, the other night I was at a birth where I showed up
thinking, this baby is going to be born tomorrow evening.
I'm going to maybe help with some positioning.
This baby seemed a little posterior to me. And I got there and she was spontaneously pushing.
(03:29):
And And we had a baby just a couple hours later. So you never know.
You can never really predict what is going to happen in a birth.
And I think that's part of the wonder of it.
I think that's why it's such an exciting job is that every time I go to a birth, I am surprised.
Sometimes it requires a lot of patience and a lot of reminding myself that,
(03:52):
okay, this is going to take however long it's going to take.
And I can't control that.
That other times I'm showing up and I'm like, okay, I've got to get really focused
because the baby is coming and I need to be like on my game right now.
But regardless, you know, it's this huge spectrum. I think every birth that we go to.
It truly is like a sacred experience. And you're with a family and you're with
(04:16):
individuals during one of the most transformational experiences of their lives.
And I try to remind myself of that every time I go to a birth,
even though part of my brain wants to get really analytical and think about
contraction patterns and when
is this baby going to come and how long am I going to be at this birth.
Try to remind myself that this first and foremost is a really sacred,
(04:41):
transformative rite and ritual that we go through as human beings becoming parents.
And I try to bring that spirit into every birth that I attend.
It's so important. And it's important to know how to act in that space too.
And we talk a lot about that in our birth photography course,
(05:01):
our essence of birth course.
But I really think that's, I mean, that is one of the most important things
to think about in the birth space is how you are acting, how you're responding
to the person in labor and how you're responding to people around you.
I actually just had a midwife just a couple of weeks ago say to me,
we had a birth photographer come in and she was there for the birth and kept
(05:25):
asking when the baby was going to come and asking, you know,
did you check? Is she 10 centimeters.
And she was saying all these things right in front of the client and really loud.
And it really bothered the midwife. I mean, midwife at one point actually asked
her to step out of the room and had like a heart to heart with her.
And she was like, we just, you know, if you're going to step into this space,
(05:46):
you really need to understand birth.
And I just I think that's so important. We hear that a lot.
Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons.
That we created the essence of birth is because we wanted to not only create
like awesome birth photographers, obviously we want people to take amazing photos,
but we wanted to create and help people find a way to become really thoughtful
(06:08):
and engaged birth workers,
people that weren't just there for the pretty picture, but were really there
for the whole birth experience and respectful Respectful language and patience and,
you know, really seeing these individuals for who they are and honoring whatever choices they may make.
(06:28):
That is like so central to our mission with Birth Becomes You is to really train
up and equip birth workers that are going to approach birth with just respect.
Respect. Yeah, respect.
I think respect is the best word to use.
And patience. Patience, I would say respect and patience because and humility,
(06:49):
a lot of patience and humility and humility.
Absolutely. And I, you know, sometimes I find myself, I have to check myself
and be like, whoa, like you went into this birth with a lot of assumptions and
it ended up being totally different than you expected.
And reminding myself that I, you know, I can't control this.
I don't, I know a lot, but I don't, you know, this is something that is bigger.
(07:11):
It's a bigger force than all of us, than any OB, than any midwife, than any doula.
Birth somehow finds a way to always surprise and humble us.
Oh, I love that. It's so true. The second thing I think every birth photographer
needs to know is that being on call is a skill and it's probably...
(07:31):
One of the biggest parts of this job. We also hear from a lot of birth photographers
and photographers who have clients or situations where they just didn't fully
understand what it meant to be on call.
And because of that reason, they end up missing the birth or they end up needing
(07:53):
someone to cover the birth because they're going out of town.
We're not just scheduling on our calendar somebody's due date and being like,
well, people will show up.
We really have to be amazing. I would love to do that. I wish that was the reality.
The reality is that you're really committing to a family for usually over a
(08:18):
month of time being available or having a trusted backup available 24-7 every single day of the week.
That takes a lot of mental effort that I don't think people really understand until they're doing it.
Yesterday morning, I woke up and my client, her water had broke.
(08:39):
She was a mole tip. And I had a whole day ahead of me with activities,
things going on with my kids, dinner plans.
And I laid in my bed and I sat there and probably for 20 minutes thought about
like four different scenarios of what could happen that day and what I would
need to arrange and rearrange and cancel and shuffle.
(09:02):
It's a lot of mental work. It is. I was just going to say the literal same thing,
like the amount of mental gymnastics that we are doing all the time.
Like I joke about it in my head, like I take my, my kid to actual gymnastics,
but then I have to have my bag just in case, especially if If I have a client
that's kind of on the fence, and then what's going to happen if I have to go
(09:24):
to the birth while she's at gymnastics?
Right. Can I get my husband to get her? Can I get my parents to get her?
They're 50 minutes away.
How is that even going to work? Because, you know, once you're called to the
birth, you don't have a whole lot of time to just wait around.
Like sometimes you just have to go and you think that your clients are going
to tell you, you know, with some heads up.
(09:45):
But sometimes they don't. And they don't have heads up sometimes. Right, exactly.
I was going to say sometimes they don't even have heads up. You know,
I have clients that do a really good job of communicating.
But there's plenty of clients that have like two-hour labors.
And suddenly everybody is scrambling. They're scrambling. We're scrambling.
It's a reality that I live with every single day. And I know that you live with it too, Jen.
(10:08):
It's one of the reasons why when we're stressed out and we're trying to figure
something out, I call you, you call me because very few people understand how demanding it is.
Both, you know, photographers and clients, I don't think really even fully understand
what we live with every day.
My kids go back to school next Monday and Dottie, my third, is starting kindergarten.
(10:33):
And I'm already kind of feeling that like anticipatory stress of what am I going
to do if someone goes into labor and it's her first day of kindergarten and
how am I going to handle that?
You have to go through and think through these conversations in our brains every
single day. It's hard. It's hard.
We talk about this a lot in the essence of birth because we want to train up
(10:55):
birth photographers that fully understand the commitment that this job takes.
And then, of course, charge accordingly because a lot of people that get started, right?
I mean, how many people do you know, Jen, that are charging like a few hundred
dollars, right, for a birth session? Yeah, many.
Yeah, they think I'm going to show up. I'll be there for a couple hours.
Baby will come. It's going to be really cool.
(11:18):
I'll take some beautiful images. I'll go home.
Five, six hours of time, you know, maybe they charge $500.
Right. But those are the same people that don't understand that you're going
to be on call for five weeks, that the birth might take 20, 30, 40 hours.
Right. That the birth might, you might think the birth's happening one night
(11:38):
and then actually happens like a week later.
Right. There's so many different possibilities. So many, so many possibilities.
Labor is just such a wild beast. I was at somebody's house for like 10 hours
and her labor just stops.
Like we all went home. We thought maybe we'd come back the next night.
We came back three and a half weeks later for her birth.
(11:58):
And so you just never know. And you have to be ready for all of it.
And you have to be like knowledgeable that you're going to have to be ready
for all of it. Like it does take like catch you off guard, but you have to understand
that this job is being caught off guard all the time.
That's really what you live in. And your family lives in it, too. It's a lifestyle.
(12:19):
It is. So understanding all that goes into it and preparing yourself,
your clients, your family.
It's a lot. It's it's a lot more than I think any new birth photographer really
understands until they do a few births. Right.
And that's why I understood until I don't. No, and even now there are times where I...
(12:39):
It's hard. It's definitely the number one reason I think people quit doing this
job is because of the on-call lifestyle.
So we talk a lot about that in Essence of Birth because we want people to fully
understand the commitment.
And we also want to give them tools to help manage this crazy part of the job
as badly as we can. If you don't have those tools, you will burn out.
(13:03):
You just can't do it for long.
And I hope that through my experience and all the lessons that I've learned,
and I know that you've learned over the years,
Jen, we've been able to distill some of that into tips and tricks and strategies
to help make this part of the work sustainable.
Because that's our number one goal.
I really do think, you know, if you've been in birth for long,
(13:26):
you can meet a midwife or a labor and delivery nurse or an OB or a doula.
And you can really sense when it's someone that's been in the birth scene for a while.
There's a different, they bring a different energy. It's really important to
have those elder birth workers.
And so our goal is to create and help sustain an industry that is sustainable
(13:50):
for more than just a couple of years.
We want birth workers to be able to do this for one decade, two decades, for as long as they want.
And managing this on-call piece, it's a big part of that in my mind.
And to be able to do that, you have to be able to charge accordingly.
Yes. And I think that's a big piece of it. And we talk a lot about pricing in the course.
(14:13):
And I think that's a big hang-up for new birth photographers and then even experienced
birth photographers in that transitional time.
And we really work to help you find a way that you can establish your pricing
and then your experience in your local market. And I think that's a really important piece.
Absolutely. Because being on call and doing this crazy job and having to leave
(14:34):
at a moment's notice, it's hard.
But it's a lot less hard when you're making six figures and you are taking good
care of your family and you're able to pay for a massage and a vacation to your
favorite city and a cleaner for your house.
All of that feels much more, the on-call piece feels much more doable when you're
(14:57):
being compensated for the amount of work that it takes.
Absolutely. That's our big goal for everybody in our community and especially
for our Essence of Birth students.
The other thing about birth photography is that you have to really know how to use your camera.
You have to know your camera really well. Wow.
I didn't understand how difficult it was to photograph a birth until I was racing
(15:24):
to my first client's house.
She, fifth baby happening very quickly. I walked in the door.
She was pushing. I was trying to get my camera out. The room was dim.
Everybody was moving. It was just wild. And I, to be perfectly honest,
I didn't know my camera very well. I got some good shots by pure luck,
(15:45):
but the vast majority of the images were pretty bad.
And now looking back with all the knowledge I have, they were really bad. So...
I can't stress enough. You really need to understand how your camera works.
You need to understand the exposure triangle.
You need to know how to work in low light.
There's a lot of different ways
(16:05):
you can approach it, but you've got to understand what the options are.
You've got to be able to use them. And last night I went to a birth,
Jen, and they had, this is a big thing right now.
I don't know, but I've seen it a lot of births. People have different color lights, right?
So there was like green lights.
That was the only lights in the room. Blue and green.
(16:28):
Obviously that's going to be a challenge. And thankfully I had a skillset background
to know how to navigate it.
But I just thought to myself, goodness, if I was brand new and I had never done
this before, I'd only done like maternity sessions outside or newborn sessions
in the studio, I would have been completely lost.
I would have panicked. I would have had to panic again.
(16:50):
Well, I had a birth that was similar where the mom was like,
can you turn on that lamp?
And the dad picks up this like really cool looking lamp and it's this beautiful
white light. And she's like, no, no, no, no, purple.
And so now we have it on purple, but it's beautiful. And I love the way that
photos turned out, but you do have to know how to use that lighting to benefit
(17:13):
you and your client because you don't want them looking purple, right?
Like you have to do a good job with, in this case, with your camera more than
with your editing skill set.
So knowing your camera is really important.
You and I, Jen, we learned a lot of this through trial and error.
We went to a lot of births. We made a lot of mistakes. stakes.
It took us, you know, a couple of years, I think, to really feel confident.
(17:37):
And what we were doing, which is also why we created Birth Becomes You and the
Essence of Birth course, is because we wanted to give people a leg up.
We wanted people to be able to walk into their very first birth not feeling
that panicky feeling of, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Right.
Having a toolbox, having the settings memorized, having different options for
(18:00):
lighting figured out in their brain, all of that stuff.
If you can practice and know about it ahead of time, it makes going into your
first birth so much less intimidating.
And even if you've done 10 births, like if you're still struggling with your
settings, if you still feel like you don't have consistency,
you need to invest some time and energy into learning your camera and really
(18:21):
nailing those settings.
Now I can go to a birth and sometimes I get caught off guard by how quickly
it's happening or maybe a situation that's happening at the birth.
But I don't get caught off guard by my camera and my settings.
I feel really confident and that's a good feeling to have.
It allows me to not feel as anxious when I'm on call, to not feel as anxious
(18:43):
when I'm driving to a birth because I know that I can walk into almost any situation
and document it in a way that is authentic and beautiful.
Yeah. And I mean, I absolutely agree with that and feel the same way.
Like I walked into a birth that was happening really quickly and I just thought
to myself, okay, like what do I do in this situation?
(19:03):
I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to put my flash on.
I needed to, you know, give everybody space because everybody was having a moment
and it was fast for the clients. It was fast for the hospital.
And I was able to just do my job, take beautiful pictures the whole time.
And as things settled in, get a little bit closer into the space and able to
(19:24):
still continue documenting.
And the baby was was born 40 minutes later. I mean, it was just very quick,
but knowing exactly what you needed to do in those moments and then doing them
with a skillset and a presence that like,
That everybody around you could appreciate. And I think that's really important.
It is important. I feel like sometimes when you aren't confident in your skills,
(19:49):
your camera skills, it creates this kind of frantic energy. Frantic, yeah. Anxious energy.
Yeah, yeah. And the birthing person doesn't need that. And the staff don't need that either.
Right. And so if you're that calm presence doing your job and doing it well,
I think that really shows.
(20:09):
And we really try to instill like what to do in those situations in our course,
because those are situations that you walk into all the time. Right.
It's not very often that you get like a call that, hey, early labor started
and then five hours later you're going like it doesn't really work that way. Sometimes it does.
But but even then, five hours later might be 2 a.m. Exactly.
(20:32):
So it's exactly it's all a juggle. And I think another thing that is really
important to talk about when you think about cameras and settings and birth
is that as birth photographers,
one of the coolest parts of our job is that we get to be in so many different spaces, right?
Like we're in the OR one day and then the next day we're in somebody's bathroom or somebody's closet.
(20:59):
And it is such a spectrum. Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes I do have beautiful
afternoon light pouring in to a living room and I feel like I'm on cloud nine.
But often I am in a dark space with bad lighting, colored lighting, no lighting.
(21:20):
The salt lamp. The salt lamp. And I have to know what to do.
And I have to know how to make the right kind of adjustments that are going
to disturb the birthing person as least as possible. That's always the goal.
But also document their birth. And it's that balance, right?
You have to figure out that balance of how do I...
(21:42):
I was at a birth the other day where I literally walked into the room and it was pitch black.
There was nothing. It didn't matter if I had cranked my ISO up to 300,000.
It didn't matter. There was no capturing anything.
And so I had to have the confidence to know, okay, this is an impossible situation.
I have to add some light in here if I'm going to document the birth.
(22:04):
And I had to know the right time to approach the birthing person.
I had to know about the right lighting source to introduce.
I'm not going to go in there and turn on every light. And that's not what my...
We're never going to do that.
But I had to know how to approach it, when to step in, when to change the lighting.
(22:25):
And I did it with confidence. And the birthing,
my client was completely on board, was not disturbed by it, was really happy
that I was there, got beautiful images, but all of that takes,
takes education and time and skill.
It absolutely does. Like you saying that takes me back to like a birth that I did years ago.
(22:47):
This was a Denver birth and it was with Jen Anderson and it was a home birth
and I loved her and I knew what the client wanted.
She wanted a very dark birth, birth space.
I knew that I expected it but but I did
say you know my camera needs some light to focus
like otherwise I can't take the pictures that you want you
(23:08):
want non-grainy right photos but you also
don't want light and I walked into that room and I kid you not it took me five
minutes before I could even see myself like I couldn't see anything and it was
at night like it wasn't like I was walking in from like a sunny day into a dark
room it was absolutely pitch black just like what you said bed.
(23:28):
And then they were like, well, you can turn on the bathroom light.
And of course, like she's laboring as far from that bathroom as possible.
That light is not reaching her. She's in a corner.
And I was totally like panicking. Like, what am I going to do?
How am I going to document this?
And it was really hard and I managed. But like looking back,
I now like I know exactly what I would have done.
(23:51):
But then, you know, it was a lot of like a little bit of worry on my part.
And if things had gone really fast and she had the baby right then,
I don't know that I would have gotten the kind of photos that she wanted.
Absolutely. And that's the worst feeling. That is the worst feeling.
And that's what we want for, what we want for birth photographers is to have
a really thorough toolkit so that they can go into any situation,
(24:14):
like the one you were talking about, and have several different options that
they feel confident trying or doing.
Yeah. So they can document the birth in a way that is, again,
authentic, vented, but also well-documented.
I had a birth the other day where the mom had literally a rainbow of lights.
Again, this is a new trend, a rainbow of lights in her living room when I was filming it.
(24:35):
And there's limits with film in terms of what you can do when you edit the film. Right.
And I pulled the sister aside and said, hey, these lights, they're cool.
I'm totally on board, but I just want to show you what the footage is going to look like as is.
And so I I played her some footage and you could see the look on her face.
Oh my gosh, she does not want that. And so then we just turn the lights to like
(25:00):
a neutral yellow, warm tone. Mm-hmm.
For the sister. Right. I think the thing that people forget is that as birth
photographers, we are hired to be the experts about documenting the birth story.
Just as the midwife is the expert on normal birth, just as the OB is an expert
on complicated births. We are the experts on documenting the birth well.
(25:23):
And so if you go into the birth and you realize that like there's a a situation
or a condition that's going to prohibit me from doing my job,
it's your, it's your duty and your job to speak up, to have that confidence, right?
We want every birth photographer to feel confident in making changes when they're necessary.
Again, work with what you can always first and foremost, but also know when
(25:48):
you're in an unworkable situation and then figure out what to do to change inject.
Yeah. I think that's so important. And like, I also think there's a lot of little
things that you're making decisions about along the way.
Like if your client with the rainbow lights was having her baby right then,
it was probably very important to change that so that she could have her film
(26:10):
without, you know, rainbows all over or whatever, you know, everybody's skin being a funny color.
But if you knew that she had 10 more hours of labor, you might not have said
that in that very moment. Absolutely.
And knowing the birth process, knowing your camera, knowing all of these things
is what like puts it all together and helps to create beautiful photos.
And there's a lot of expertise and knowledge that goes into that.
(26:33):
And, and we are like happy and love to like talk about that and share that with you.
So I hope that comes across because I think.
I mean, we love what we do and we love teaching what we do. And it was really
cool last night, Jen, at the birth that I was at.
The doula was actually one of our former Essence of Birth students.
So she took our course. I don't remember when, maybe last year.
And she was so sweet because we got to meet in person and that connection was really cool.
(26:58):
When I got there, though, every room, just like you were talking about,
every light in her room was dark. It was pitch black.
I could have gone in there and turned on the lights, but I thought to myself,
I think we have some time. So I'm going to just let it settle.
I'm going to say I'm here. I'm packing my bags, get a drink.
And then the amazing, sweet doula student, we kind of made some light adjustments together.
(27:23):
But you're right. It's about putting all those pieces together,
knowing your camera, but then also understanding when is the right time.
Where are we in the birth?
Do we have hours or do we have minutes?
And making adjustments when it's appropriate. It's okay. hey,
if someone wants to labor in the dark and they're in early active labor,
(27:43):
let them labor in the dark.
You don't have to document every single second. It's okay to step back and give
them space. So I think that's so important.
Well, we could talk forever about this, but I think we should go to the fourth
thing that every birth photographer needs to know, and that's marketing.
And I hate to say that because I think that for many of us birth workers, we love birth.
(28:05):
We love of the arts of birth photography and the marketing piece and the business
piece can feel like a total drag and feel really intimidating and discouraging.
Even it's really hard.
It's a hard part of this job, but it's an essential part of this job.
And even as clients, you do.
(28:27):
And even as someone who's been doing this for a long time and I have a big following
and I've done almost a thousand births, I still have to think about marketing every single month.
I can't just be like, okay, cool. I've made it. So now I'm just going to shrug
my shoulders and the inquiries are just going to keep on coming forever.
It's not like constant. Yeah. It's a constant. Yeah.
(28:48):
And it's a constant in all the different areas. I mean, it's a constant,
you know, local connections.
It's a constant social media strategy. It's a constant like updating your website,
blogging, you know, sending emails to your list. It's a lot.
It is a lot. And it's one of the reasons that I think you and I have made a
commitment to continue to be practicing birth photographers while we are also teaching.
(29:13):
Because a lot of people that decide to teach in the photography space,
they end up stop, they don't do very many sessions.
Maybe they'll do, you know, if they're a wedding mentor, maybe they'll do one wedding a year.
But they're not really doing it in the way that they were doing it before they started teaching.
You and I have always felt like it's been really important to stay in our community
(29:35):
and to be working right alongside all of our students. So it changes constantly.
I mean, there's so much that stays the same, but there is so much that changes.
Yeah. And so we're in the trenches. We're in the trenches with everybody.
We know how TikTok and Reels have changed things dramatically.
We know how the algorithm sometimes works in our advantage and other times really
(29:57):
doesn't work in our advantage. Yeah.
We are brainstorming and learning right along with you because just as it's
important for you to bring in new clients, it's important for me to bring in
new clients, Jen, for you to bring in new clients.
And so that's a big part of what we do with The Essence of Birth is we're not
only teaching you how to be an
amazing photographer and to be a really conscious and aware birth worker,
(30:23):
but we also want to help you be an awesome marketer, someone that can grow. and change and adapt.
And we've helped a lot of birth photographers over the years build really amazing, thriving businesses.
I mean, I'm thinking just off the top of my head, Lindsay Eden here in Denver.
I mean, she's competing with me. We're each other's competition.
(30:46):
And to watch her business flourish and for her to find her own unique client
and her own unique market has been beautiful.
Carmen Bridgewater down in Texas, Nicole Hammack, who had to move you know, from Phoenix to Utah,
all of these amazing birth photographers and birth workers that have found a
(31:07):
way and paved a way after taking Essence of Birth has been really inspiring to see.
And it is truly one of the hardest parts, not as hard as being on call.
I still think that's number one, but maybe number two is marketing in an ever-changing world.
So this year with with our Essence of Birth students, we're actually going to
(31:29):
be spending extra time marketing because we know that it's been hard for a lot
of people in our community.
Yep. Money is tight. All across the country and the world, people are really being...
Particular about what they're spending their extra money on.
And so we have to work a little bit harder to get clients right now.
And so that's a big focus for us in essence.
(31:49):
And especially in this upcoming cohort, we're actually going to do a marketing
lab for anybody who signs up on the first two days of registration,
which we're really exciting about.
It's going to be two Zoom calls where we get to brainstorm together.
We're going to come up with marketing strategies that are unique to each of
us because right, Jen, like how I market here in Denver is very different than
(32:10):
how you have to market in Michigan.
Yeah. It's very different. There's a whole overlap, but it is a different,
it's a different experience for each of us.
So we're going to talk about that and try to really help everybody that's in
that lab, figure out where they fit and come up with a unique strategy for, for them.
I'm working on, I mean, I'm working on a strategy for myself right Even though
(32:31):
I am fully booked for the rest of 2024 and booking well into 2025.
I'm still trying to figure out how do I take it to the next level?
How do I sustain this level of success for the long term?
No, it's so important. And there's so many little things.
Google Ads and like how does that factor in and all of the ever-changing like
(32:51):
SEO rules that we're seeing now.
And so our course has a lot of that information in it. And then we like work
to learn this stuff so we are current and knowledgeable so that we can put it
into practice for our own businesses and then help you.
And that's really, really important to us. And I also think understanding like
business long term is really important, like understanding how to set up your
(33:15):
business, how to maintain your business, how to pay your taxes.
Like all of these things are part of having a successful business and you need
to put all of those pieces together to kind of keep it going.
And I think that's one of the hardest parts, at least for new photographer,
excuse me, photographers getting started.
Can I say that again? Like, Julie, edit that out.
(33:38):
For new photographers getting started in this industry, there is a lot of things
that you need to do from setting up your business to like, you know,
creating your business and just all the things in between.
And we really work hard on helping you to do that and figuring out where you're
at so that we can help you where you're at.
(33:59):
Like maybe you have set up a business, but you haven't done,
you know, these other things. So absolutely.
I think there's a lot of like little things that we really focus on. Yeah.
The thing about birth in general is that there's so much, and I think it comes
back to the patriarchy, of course,
but there's so many reasons why birth workers all across the spectrum from midwives
(34:23):
to labor and delivery nurses to doulas to birth photographers exist in a world
in which Sometimes I feel like our work is undervalued and we undervalue ourselves,
right? We're not charging enough.
We're building businesses that are more like hobbies on the side versus long-term careers.
(34:43):
That's really important to me as someone who has truly built a career out of
this to help other birth workers do the same. It's amazing work.
It fills up my soul. but it's also really important that it is building my family's future,
that it is providing for me in the present, and also that I'm able to set aside
(35:04):
money every month for retirement, for my kids' education.
All of that is important. And I really want to help birth workers,
not only birth photographers, but I'm talking about home birth midwives.
I'm talking about doulas.
I'm talking about lactation consultants, all of these people that are doing
such important work that have not found a way to make this business really sustainable
(35:28):
for themselves and their family for the long term.
And so it is a goal of both of ours. It's a goal of Birth Becomes You.
It's something that's part of every aspect of our course.
We want you to take beautiful photos, absolutely.
But we also want you to have a business that's able to succeed in the long term. It's important.
(35:49):
It really is. And piecing all of these things together and being able to balance
them all is really the key to being successful for the long term. Yes, absolutely.
Well, we hope you enjoyed us talking about,
These four things that we think every new and experienced birth photographer needs to know.
But we also want to take a moment just to talk about Essence of Birth.
(36:12):
We've mentioned it throughout this episode.
This is our premier course. We've been teaching it for years now.
We've taught hundreds, maybe even over a thousand birth photographers across
the country and the world.
And registration opens up on August 19th. Like we mentioned,
the people that sign up on those first two days are going to get not only the
(36:35):
course, which is seven weeks of content, of live Zoom calls, of mentoring feedback,
but you're also going to get to be part of the marketing lab,
which we're really excited about.
We're doing that for the first time for this cohort. cohort,
we really hope that if you are in that kind of beginning phase,
maybe you've photographed 10 births, I think anything less than 20 births,
(37:00):
Essence of Birth is a great place for you to start.
If you're a doula and you want to expand your business, if you're a photographer
and you want to get into birth, or if you're totally brand new and you just
love the birth experience, then we would really love for you to consider taking Essence of Birth.
And the course content is available for life.
(37:20):
Yes. And this is a question that we get a lot. You can come back and rewatch
and reread all of this content at any time.
And I think that's really important because sometimes you're busy digesting
one piece and then it's harder to digest another.
And so it's nice to be able to come back to check your settings.
Like what were those settings that Jen and Monet said I should start with?
(37:43):
And you can just go right back and look at the settings chapter and see exactly what you need.
And all of those pieces are there. You can look them up on your phone when you're at a birth.
Those little things, when you're at a birth and you're kind of struggling or
juggling to figure out what you're supposed to do, it's nice to at least be
able to have that as something that you can access just at your fingertips.
(38:05):
Absolutely. And I had somebody tell me that just a few weeks ago.
They were like, well, I didn't know what to do. It was really dark at this birth.
I couldn't remember what my flash settings were supposed to be. I looked in the course.
And I think that's cool. I think that they knew that that was a resource that
they could use and utilize immediately. And it worked for them. So, yeah.
And I think the cool thing about Lessons of Birth is that these students that
(38:29):
take our course and start photographing births, they're more than students.
They become some of our closest friends.
A lot of them now are teaching with us and working with us professionally.
One of my students, Brittany, is now a full-time associate with me.
She backs me up for all my births.
The connections that we make in this course are a big deal. And we want people
(38:55):
to walk away and feel like they're more than just like, I just took a birth photography course.
We want them to feel like they found a community and they found a safe space
to grow, to be vulnerable, to celebrate with.
It's more than just a seven-week course. It really is this long-term community.
Every single month after you take the Essence of Birth, we have a live Zoom
(39:20):
call for certified birth photographers from all over the world.
So you can join in and get education every single month indefinitely after you
complete our course. We have a call tomorrow that, you know,
they're talking about backup photographers. How do you find a good backup photographer?
And I think that's so important.
(39:40):
But I think that's a really, really cool part of what we do is it's more than
just like checking off a course and getting some tips and some tricks.
It's about finding a landing place for you as a business owner,
as a birth worker, as a photographer, as an artist.
So we'd love for you to consider joining us. you're more than welcome to message
(40:01):
us or email us at birthbecomesher at gmail.com.
If you want to know if this course is a good fit for you, we love talking to
people about where they're at and what we think the course might or may not offer them.
We'll be honest with you. If we don't think it's a good fit,
we'll tell you. We've done that many times for people.
So if you have questions, we would love to chat with you.
(40:25):
We absolutely have done that, too. We want you to we want this course to be
like such a benefit to you as well.
So it's not going to be like that's not it's not our primary objective.
So, yeah, we're really excited to work with you and we're excited to,
like, see you grow and succeed. That's super important.
Yeah. The number one goal for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you all for being here with us today.
(40:46):
Is there anything else you want to add, Monet? Any other last minute thoughts?
I think that ultimately, with the essence of birth,
our goal has always been for people to feel like they are able to walk away
from the course with confidence, that they feel like they understand their camera,
(41:10):
they understand the birth process,
they understand how to build a business that can be sustainable for the long term.
We want every single one of our
birth photographers to be a wild success like so
many of our former students have been i love
that so many of the photographers here in denver have taken our course and are
(41:32):
now booking clients and taking beautiful images we are about sharing we are
about community we are about connection and so if that's what you're looking
for we hope you consider joining us for the fall cohort,
because that's what we're all about. I love that.
All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening. And we can't wait to see,
(41:53):
I guess not see, we can't wait to talk more next week.
But as a reminder, registration opens on August 19th.
And you can find out more details on our website. And we'll make sure to put
that in the show notes. Thanks, everybody.
Thanks. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for tuning in. Find out more about us, our courses and other tools for
(42:16):
birth photography at birthbecomesyou.com.
And make sure to follow along on Instagram and Facebook at birthbecomesyou.
And if you love listening, make sure to give us five stars on Apple Podcasts
and subscribe wherever you listen.
Thanks. Catch you on the flip side.
Hi, Monet. How are you? I'm good. I was at a birth all night last night, and so I'm tired.
I've had a string of overnight births beginning of August, so I'm really looking
forward to sleeping well tonight.
But yeah, it was a beautiful birth. The sunrise came up.
They had horses, so I got to go outside and see a horse as the sun was rising,
(00:22):
which was really special.
So even though I'm sleep-deprived, I feel really happy that I got to attend such a beautiful birth.
And yeah, the horse definitely was like the icing on the cake for me.
Yeah, that's really cool. Was it up in the mountains or was it somebody?
No, it was right in Denver.
So yeah, a horse in the city. So super special. Wild west out there. Yes, exactly.
(00:46):
All right. Well, today we're going to talk about what every birth photographer needs to know.
And there's a lot of things that Monet Monet and I have learned over the years,
and we're excited to share all of them with you.
Hi, it's Monet and Jen, and we are the co-founders of Birth Becomes You.
We are birth photographers and doulas with over 10 years of experience.
(01:07):
We've attended over 1,000 births collectively.
We started Birth Becomes You to create a safe space for new and experienced
birth photographers to share and grow. We aim to equip and empower birth workers
to feel confident in the birth space and take beautiful, world-changing images.
We believe in a world where birth is visible, where shame is absent,
(01:28):
where fear is translated to power, and where each individual's experience is
honored as valid and valued.
We are so glad you're here, and we can't wait to learn and connect with you.
So should we just jump in and get started? Let's jump in. All right.
I'll let you go first. Okay.
So I think, you know, when we work with new or beginning birth photographers.
(01:54):
A lot of the questions that we get, I think you'd agree, Jen,
have to do with understanding the birth process.
Like, when do I go to a birth? What does it mean? What does this contraction pattern mean?
And as someone who has been doing births now for 10 years, I think the number
one thing that I know about birth is that birth is wild and unpredictable and incredibly humbling.
(02:19):
I sometimes will make predictions based on my experience and what I've seen
and then my predictions are totally wrong and I either underestimate or overestimate
and so I feel like every time I go to a birth, I'm just completely like, wow,
like this is, there are patterns for sure.
But I think surprised just as often as I'm, as I'm like, wow,
(02:43):
I totally predicted that that was going to go this way. Don't you agree?
Yeah. And we talk about this all the time. Like, even though we've been doing
this for 10 years, it's really hard to know when to go to the birth because
you don't want to go too early and kind of interfere with early labor.
And you obviously don't want to go too late and miss it or being rushed,
like rushing into the room. So it is an art.
(03:06):
It's a skill. And it's a little bit of luck, I think, sometimes too.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, the other night I was at a birth where I showed up
thinking, this baby is going to be born tomorrow evening.
I'm going to maybe help with some positioning.
This baby seemed a little posterior to me. And I got there and she was spontaneously pushing.
(03:29):
And And we had a baby just a couple hours later. So you never know.
You can never really predict what is going to happen in a birth.
And I think that's part of the wonder of it.
I think that's why it's such an exciting job is that every time I go to a birth, I am surprised.
Sometimes it requires a lot of patience and a lot of reminding myself that,
(03:52):
okay, this is going to take however long it's going to take.
And I can't control that.
That other times I'm showing up and I'm like, okay, I've got to get really focused
because the baby is coming and I need to be like on my game right now.
But regardless, you know, it's this huge spectrum. I think every birth that we go to.
It truly is like a sacred experience. And you're with a family and you're with
(04:16):
individuals during one of the most transformational experiences of their lives.
And I try to remind myself of that every time I go to a birth,
even though part of my brain wants to get really analytical and think about
contraction patterns and when
is this baby going to come and how long am I going to be at this birth.
Try to remind myself that this first and foremost is a really sacred,
(04:41):
transformative rite and ritual that we go through as human beings becoming parents.
And I try to bring that spirit into every birth that I attend.
It's so important. And it's important to know how to act in that space too.
And we talk a lot about that in our birth photography course,
(05:01):
our essence of birth course.
But I really think that's, I mean, that is one of the most important things
to think about in the birth space is how you are acting, how you're responding
to the person in labor and how you're responding to people around you.
I actually just had a midwife just a couple of weeks ago say to me,
we had a birth photographer come in and she was there for the birth and kept
(05:25):
asking when the baby was going to come and asking, you know,
did you check? Is she 10 centimeters.
And she was saying all these things right in front of the client and really loud.
And it really bothered the midwife. I mean, midwife at one point actually asked
her to step out of the room and had like a heart to heart with her.
And she was like, we just, you know, if you're going to step into this space,
(05:46):
you really need to understand birth.
And I just I think that's so important. We hear that a lot.
Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons.
That we created the essence of birth is because we wanted to not only create
like awesome birth photographers, obviously we want people to take amazing photos,
but we wanted to create and help people find a way to become really thoughtful
(06:08):
and engaged birth workers,
people that weren't just there for the pretty picture, but were really there
for the whole birth experience and respectful Respectful language and patience and,
you know, really seeing these individuals for who they are and honoring whatever choices they may make.
(06:28):
That is like so central to our mission with Birth Becomes You is to really train
up and equip birth workers that are going to approach birth with just respect.
Respect. Yeah, respect.
I think respect is the best word to use.
And patience. Patience, I would say respect and patience because and humility,
(06:49):
a lot of patience and humility and humility.
Absolutely. And I, you know, sometimes I find myself, I have to check myself
and be like, whoa, like you went into this birth with a lot of assumptions and
it ended up being totally different than you expected.
And reminding myself that I, you know, I can't control this.
I don't, I know a lot, but I don't, you know, this is something that is bigger.
(07:11):
It's a bigger force than all of us, than any OB, than any midwife, than any doula.
Birth somehow finds a way to always surprise and humble us.
Oh, I love that. It's so true. The second thing I think every birth photographer
needs to know is that being on call is a skill and it's probably...
(07:31):
One of the biggest parts of this job. We also hear from a lot of birth photographers
and photographers who have clients or situations where they just didn't fully
understand what it meant to be on call.
And because of that reason, they end up missing the birth or they end up needing
(07:53):
someone to cover the birth because they're going out of town.
We're not just scheduling on our calendar somebody's due date and being like,
well, people will show up.
We really have to be amazing. I would love to do that. I wish that was the reality.
The reality is that you're really committing to a family for usually over a
(08:18):
month of time being available or having a trusted backup available 24-7 every single day of the week.
That takes a lot of mental effort that I don't think people really understand until they're doing it.
Yesterday morning, I woke up and my client, her water had broke.
(08:39):
She was a mole tip. And I had a whole day ahead of me with activities,
things going on with my kids, dinner plans.
And I laid in my bed and I sat there and probably for 20 minutes thought about
like four different scenarios of what could happen that day and what I would
need to arrange and rearrange and cancel and shuffle.
(09:02):
It's a lot of mental work. It is. I was just going to say the literal same thing,
like the amount of mental gymnastics that we are doing all the time.
Like I joke about it in my head, like I take my, my kid to actual gymnastics,
but then I have to have my bag just in case, especially if If I have a client
that's kind of on the fence, and then what's going to happen if I have to go
(09:24):
to the birth while she's at gymnastics?
Right. Can I get my husband to get her? Can I get my parents to get her?
They're 50 minutes away.
How is that even going to work? Because, you know, once you're called to the
birth, you don't have a whole lot of time to just wait around.
Like sometimes you just have to go and you think that your clients are going
to tell you, you know, with some heads up.
(09:45):
But sometimes they don't. And they don't have heads up sometimes. Right, exactly.
I was going to say sometimes they don't even have heads up. You know,
I have clients that do a really good job of communicating.
But there's plenty of clients that have like two-hour labors.
And suddenly everybody is scrambling. They're scrambling. We're scrambling.
It's a reality that I live with every single day. And I know that you live with it too, Jen.
(10:08):
It's one of the reasons why when we're stressed out and we're trying to figure
something out, I call you, you call me because very few people understand how demanding it is.
Both, you know, photographers and clients, I don't think really even fully understand
what we live with every day.
My kids go back to school next Monday and Dottie, my third, is starting kindergarten.
(10:33):
And I'm already kind of feeling that like anticipatory stress of what am I going
to do if someone goes into labor and it's her first day of kindergarten and
how am I going to handle that?
You have to go through and think through these conversations in our brains every
single day. It's hard. It's hard.
We talk about this a lot in the essence of birth because we want to train up
(10:55):
birth photographers that fully understand the commitment that this job takes.
And then, of course, charge accordingly because a lot of people that get started, right?
I mean, how many people do you know, Jen, that are charging like a few hundred
dollars, right, for a birth session? Yeah, many.
Yeah, they think I'm going to show up. I'll be there for a couple hours.
Baby will come. It's going to be really cool.
(11:18):
I'll take some beautiful images. I'll go home.
Five, six hours of time, you know, maybe they charge $500.
Right. But those are the same people that don't understand that you're going
to be on call for five weeks, that the birth might take 20, 30, 40 hours.
Right. That the birth might, you might think the birth's happening one night
(11:38):
and then actually happens like a week later.
Right. There's so many different possibilities. So many, so many possibilities.
Labor is just such a wild beast. I was at somebody's house for like 10 hours
and her labor just stops.
Like we all went home. We thought maybe we'd come back the next night.
We came back three and a half weeks later for her birth.
(11:58):
And so you just never know. And you have to be ready for all of it.
And you have to be like knowledgeable that you're going to have to be ready
for all of it. Like it does take like catch you off guard, but you have to understand
that this job is being caught off guard all the time.
That's really what you live in. And your family lives in it, too. It's a lifestyle.
(12:19):
It is. So understanding all that goes into it and preparing yourself,
your clients, your family.
It's a lot. It's it's a lot more than I think any new birth photographer really
understands until they do a few births. Right.
And that's why I understood until I don't. No, and even now there are times where I...
(12:39):
It's hard. It's definitely the number one reason I think people quit doing this
job is because of the on-call lifestyle.
So we talk a lot about that in Essence of Birth because we want people to fully
understand the commitment.
And we also want to give them tools to help manage this crazy part of the job
as badly as we can. If you don't have those tools, you will burn out.
(13:03):
You just can't do it for long.
And I hope that through my experience and all the lessons that I've learned,
and I know that you've learned over the years,
Jen, we've been able to distill some of that into tips and tricks and strategies
to help make this part of the work sustainable.
Because that's our number one goal.
I really do think, you know, if you've been in birth for long,
(13:26):
you can meet a midwife or a labor and delivery nurse or an OB or a doula.
And you can really sense when it's someone that's been in the birth scene for a while.
There's a different, they bring a different energy. It's really important to
have those elder birth workers.
And so our goal is to create and help sustain an industry that is sustainable
(13:50):
for more than just a couple of years.
We want birth workers to be able to do this for one decade, two decades, for as long as they want.
And managing this on-call piece, it's a big part of that in my mind.
And to be able to do that, you have to be able to charge accordingly.
Yes. And I think that's a big piece of it. And we talk a lot about pricing in the course.
(14:13):
And I think that's a big hang-up for new birth photographers and then even experienced
birth photographers in that transitional time.
And we really work to help you find a way that you can establish your pricing
and then your experience in your local market. And I think that's a really important piece.
Absolutely. Because being on call and doing this crazy job and having to leave
(14:34):
at a moment's notice, it's hard.
But it's a lot less hard when you're making six figures and you are taking good
care of your family and you're able to pay for a massage and a vacation to your
favorite city and a cleaner for your house.
All of that feels much more, the on-call piece feels much more doable when you're
(14:57):
being compensated for the amount of work that it takes.
Absolutely. That's our big goal for everybody in our community and especially
for our Essence of Birth students.
The other thing about birth photography is that you have to really know how to use your camera.
You have to know your camera really well. Wow.
I didn't understand how difficult it was to photograph a birth until I was racing
(15:24):
to my first client's house.
She, fifth baby happening very quickly. I walked in the door.
She was pushing. I was trying to get my camera out. The room was dim.
Everybody was moving. It was just wild. And I, to be perfectly honest,
I didn't know my camera very well. I got some good shots by pure luck,
(15:45):
but the vast majority of the images were pretty bad.
And now looking back with all the knowledge I have, they were really bad. So...
I can't stress enough. You really need to understand how your camera works.
You need to understand the exposure triangle.
You need to know how to work in low light.
There's a lot of different ways
(16:05):
you can approach it, but you've got to understand what the options are.
You've got to be able to use them. And last night I went to a birth,
Jen, and they had, this is a big thing right now.
I don't know, but I've seen it a lot of births. People have different color lights, right?
So there was like green lights.
That was the only lights in the room. Blue and green.
(16:28):
Obviously that's going to be a challenge. And thankfully I had a skillset background
to know how to navigate it.
But I just thought to myself, goodness, if I was brand new and I had never done
this before, I'd only done like maternity sessions outside or newborn sessions
in the studio, I would have been completely lost.
I would have panicked. I would have had to panic again.
(16:50):
Well, I had a birth that was similar where the mom was like,
can you turn on that lamp?
And the dad picks up this like really cool looking lamp and it's this beautiful
white light. And she's like, no, no, no, no, purple.
And so now we have it on purple, but it's beautiful. And I love the way that
photos turned out, but you do have to know how to use that lighting to benefit
(17:13):
you and your client because you don't want them looking purple, right?
Like you have to do a good job with, in this case, with your camera more than
with your editing skill set.
So knowing your camera is really important.
You and I, Jen, we learned a lot of this through trial and error.
We went to a lot of births. We made a lot of mistakes. stakes.
It took us, you know, a couple of years, I think, to really feel confident.
(17:37):
And what we were doing, which is also why we created Birth Becomes You and the
Essence of Birth course, is because we wanted to give people a leg up.
We wanted people to be able to walk into their very first birth not feeling
that panicky feeling of, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Right.
Having a toolbox, having the settings memorized, having different options for
(18:00):
lighting figured out in their brain, all of that stuff.
If you can practice and know about it ahead of time, it makes going into your
first birth so much less intimidating.
And even if you've done 10 births, like if you're still struggling with your
settings, if you still feel like you don't have consistency,
you need to invest some time and energy into learning your camera and really
(18:21):
nailing those settings.
Now I can go to a birth and sometimes I get caught off guard by how quickly
it's happening or maybe a situation that's happening at the birth.
But I don't get caught off guard by my camera and my settings.
I feel really confident and that's a good feeling to have.
It allows me to not feel as anxious when I'm on call, to not feel as anxious
(18:43):
when I'm driving to a birth because I know that I can walk into almost any situation
and document it in a way that is authentic and beautiful.
Yeah. And I mean, I absolutely agree with that and feel the same way.
Like I walked into a birth that was happening really quickly and I just thought
to myself, okay, like what do I do in this situation?
(19:03):
I knew exactly what I needed to do. I needed to put my flash on.
I needed to, you know, give everybody space because everybody was having a moment
and it was fast for the clients. It was fast for the hospital.
And I was able to just do my job, take beautiful pictures the whole time.
And as things settled in, get a little bit closer into the space and able to
(19:24):
still continue documenting.
And the baby was was born 40 minutes later. I mean, it was just very quick,
but knowing exactly what you needed to do in those moments and then doing them
with a skillset and a presence that like,
That everybody around you could appreciate. And I think that's really important.
It is important. I feel like sometimes when you aren't confident in your skills,
(19:49):
your camera skills, it creates this kind of frantic energy. Frantic, yeah. Anxious energy.
Yeah, yeah. And the birthing person doesn't need that. And the staff don't need that either.
Right. And so if you're that calm presence doing your job and doing it well,
I think that really shows.
(20:09):
And we really try to instill like what to do in those situations in our course,
because those are situations that you walk into all the time. Right.
It's not very often that you get like a call that, hey, early labor started
and then five hours later you're going like it doesn't really work that way. Sometimes it does.
But but even then, five hours later might be 2 a.m. Exactly.
(20:32):
So it's exactly it's all a juggle. And I think another thing that is really
important to talk about when you think about cameras and settings and birth
is that as birth photographers,
one of the coolest parts of our job is that we get to be in so many different spaces, right?
Like we're in the OR one day and then the next day we're in somebody's bathroom or somebody's closet.
(20:59):
And it is such a spectrum. Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes I do have beautiful
afternoon light pouring in to a living room and I feel like I'm on cloud nine.
But often I am in a dark space with bad lighting, colored lighting, no lighting.
(21:20):
The salt lamp. The salt lamp. And I have to know what to do.
And I have to know how to make the right kind of adjustments that are going
to disturb the birthing person as least as possible. That's always the goal.
But also document their birth. And it's that balance, right?
You have to figure out that balance of how do I...
(21:42):
I was at a birth the other day where I literally walked into the room and it was pitch black.
There was nothing. It didn't matter if I had cranked my ISO up to 300,000.
It didn't matter. There was no capturing anything.
And so I had to have the confidence to know, okay, this is an impossible situation.
I have to add some light in here if I'm going to document the birth.
(22:04):
And I had to know the right time to approach the birthing person.
I had to know about the right lighting source to introduce.
I'm not going to go in there and turn on every light. And that's not what my...
We're never going to do that.
But I had to know how to approach it, when to step in, when to change the lighting.
(22:25):
And I did it with confidence. And the birthing,
my client was completely on board, was not disturbed by it, was really happy
that I was there, got beautiful images, but all of that takes,
takes education and time and skill.
It absolutely does. Like you saying that takes me back to like a birth that I did years ago.
(22:47):
This was a Denver birth and it was with Jen Anderson and it was a home birth
and I loved her and I knew what the client wanted.
She wanted a very dark birth, birth space.
I knew that I expected it but but I did
say you know my camera needs some light to focus
like otherwise I can't take the pictures that you want you
(23:08):
want non-grainy right photos but you also
don't want light and I walked into that room and I kid you not it took me five
minutes before I could even see myself like I couldn't see anything and it was
at night like it wasn't like I was walking in from like a sunny day into a dark
room it was absolutely pitch black just like what you said bed.
(23:28):
And then they were like, well, you can turn on the bathroom light.
And of course, like she's laboring as far from that bathroom as possible.
That light is not reaching her. She's in a corner.
And I was totally like panicking. Like, what am I going to do?
How am I going to document this?
And it was really hard and I managed. But like looking back,
I now like I know exactly what I would have done.
(23:51):
But then, you know, it was a lot of like a little bit of worry on my part.
And if things had gone really fast and she had the baby right then,
I don't know that I would have gotten the kind of photos that she wanted.
Absolutely. And that's the worst feeling. That is the worst feeling.
And that's what we want for, what we want for birth photographers is to have
a really thorough toolkit so that they can go into any situation,
(24:14):
like the one you were talking about, and have several different options that
they feel confident trying or doing.
Yeah. So they can document the birth in a way that is, again,
authentic, vented, but also well-documented.
I had a birth the other day where the mom had literally a rainbow of lights.
Again, this is a new trend, a rainbow of lights in her living room when I was filming it.
(24:35):
And there's limits with film in terms of what you can do when you edit the film. Right.
And I pulled the sister aside and said, hey, these lights, they're cool.
I'm totally on board, but I just want to show you what the footage is going to look like as is.
And so I I played her some footage and you could see the look on her face.
Oh my gosh, she does not want that. And so then we just turn the lights to like
(25:00):
a neutral yellow, warm tone. Mm-hmm.
For the sister. Right. I think the thing that people forget is that as birth
photographers, we are hired to be the experts about documenting the birth story.
Just as the midwife is the expert on normal birth, just as the OB is an expert
on complicated births. We are the experts on documenting the birth well.
(25:23):
And so if you go into the birth and you realize that like there's a a situation
or a condition that's going to prohibit me from doing my job,
it's your, it's your duty and your job to speak up, to have that confidence, right?
We want every birth photographer to feel confident in making changes when they're necessary.
Again, work with what you can always first and foremost, but also know when
(25:48):
you're in an unworkable situation and then figure out what to do to change inject.
Yeah. I think that's so important. And like, I also think there's a lot of little
things that you're making decisions about along the way.
Like if your client with the rainbow lights was having her baby right then,
it was probably very important to change that so that she could have her film
(26:10):
without, you know, rainbows all over or whatever, you know, everybody's skin being a funny color.
But if you knew that she had 10 more hours of labor, you might not have said
that in that very moment. Absolutely.
And knowing the birth process, knowing your camera, knowing all of these things
is what like puts it all together and helps to create beautiful photos.
And there's a lot of expertise and knowledge that goes into that.
(26:33):
And, and we are like happy and love to like talk about that and share that with you.
So I hope that comes across because I think.
I mean, we love what we do and we love teaching what we do. And it was really
cool last night, Jen, at the birth that I was at.
The doula was actually one of our former Essence of Birth students.
So she took our course. I don't remember when, maybe last year.
And she was so sweet because we got to meet in person and that connection was really cool.
(26:58):
When I got there, though, every room, just like you were talking about,
every light in her room was dark. It was pitch black.
I could have gone in there and turned on the lights, but I thought to myself,
I think we have some time. So I'm going to just let it settle.
I'm going to say I'm here. I'm packing my bags, get a drink.
And then the amazing, sweet doula student, we kind of made some light adjustments together.
(27:23):
But you're right. It's about putting all those pieces together,
knowing your camera, but then also understanding when is the right time.
Where are we in the birth?
Do we have hours or do we have minutes?
And making adjustments when it's appropriate. It's okay. hey,
if someone wants to labor in the dark and they're in early active labor,
(27:43):
let them labor in the dark.
You don't have to document every single second. It's okay to step back and give
them space. So I think that's so important.
Well, we could talk forever about this, but I think we should go to the fourth
thing that every birth photographer needs to know, and that's marketing.
And I hate to say that because I think that for many of us birth workers, we love birth.
(28:05):
We love of the arts of birth photography and the marketing piece and the business
piece can feel like a total drag and feel really intimidating and discouraging.
Even it's really hard.
It's a hard part of this job, but it's an essential part of this job.
And even as clients, you do.
(28:27):
And even as someone who's been doing this for a long time and I have a big following
and I've done almost a thousand births, I still have to think about marketing every single month.
I can't just be like, okay, cool. I've made it. So now I'm just going to shrug
my shoulders and the inquiries are just going to keep on coming forever.
It's not like constant. Yeah. It's a constant. Yeah.
(28:48):
And it's a constant in all the different areas. I mean, it's a constant,
you know, local connections.
It's a constant social media strategy. It's a constant like updating your website,
blogging, you know, sending emails to your list. It's a lot.
It is a lot. And it's one of the reasons that I think you and I have made a
commitment to continue to be practicing birth photographers while we are also teaching.
(29:13):
Because a lot of people that decide to teach in the photography space,
they end up stop, they don't do very many sessions.
Maybe they'll do, you know, if they're a wedding mentor, maybe they'll do one wedding a year.
But they're not really doing it in the way that they were doing it before they started teaching.
You and I have always felt like it's been really important to stay in our community
(29:35):
and to be working right alongside all of our students. So it changes constantly.
I mean, there's so much that stays the same, but there is so much that changes.
Yeah. And so we're in the trenches. We're in the trenches with everybody.
We know how TikTok and Reels have changed things dramatically.
We know how the algorithm sometimes works in our advantage and other times really
(29:57):
doesn't work in our advantage. Yeah.
We are brainstorming and learning right along with you because just as it's
important for you to bring in new clients, it's important for me to bring in
new clients, Jen, for you to bring in new clients.
And so that's a big part of what we do with The Essence of Birth is we're not
only teaching you how to be an
amazing photographer and to be a really conscious and aware birth worker,
(30:23):
but we also want to help you be an awesome marketer, someone that can grow. and change and adapt.
And we've helped a lot of birth photographers over the years build really amazing, thriving businesses.
I mean, I'm thinking just off the top of my head, Lindsay Eden here in Denver.
I mean, she's competing with me. We're each other's competition.
(30:46):
And to watch her business flourish and for her to find her own unique client
and her own unique market has been beautiful.
Carmen Bridgewater down in Texas, Nicole Hammack, who had to move you know, from Phoenix to Utah,
all of these amazing birth photographers and birth workers that have found a
(31:07):
way and paved a way after taking Essence of Birth has been really inspiring to see.
And it is truly one of the hardest parts, not as hard as being on call.
I still think that's number one, but maybe number two is marketing in an ever-changing world.
So this year with with our Essence of Birth students, we're actually going to
(31:29):
be spending extra time marketing because we know that it's been hard for a lot
of people in our community.
Yep. Money is tight. All across the country and the world, people are really being...
Particular about what they're spending their extra money on.
And so we have to work a little bit harder to get clients right now.
And so that's a big focus for us in essence.
(31:49):
And especially in this upcoming cohort, we're actually going to do a marketing
lab for anybody who signs up on the first two days of registration,
which we're really exciting about.
It's going to be two Zoom calls where we get to brainstorm together.
We're going to come up with marketing strategies that are unique to each of
us because right, Jen, like how I market here in Denver is very different than
(32:10):
how you have to market in Michigan.
Yeah. It's very different. There's a whole overlap, but it is a different,
it's a different experience for each of us.
So we're going to talk about that and try to really help everybody that's in
that lab, figure out where they fit and come up with a unique strategy for, for them.
I'm working on, I mean, I'm working on a strategy for myself right Even though
(32:31):
I am fully booked for the rest of 2024 and booking well into 2025.
I'm still trying to figure out how do I take it to the next level?
How do I sustain this level of success for the long term?
No, it's so important. And there's so many little things.
Google Ads and like how does that factor in and all of the ever-changing like
(32:51):
SEO rules that we're seeing now.
And so our course has a lot of that information in it. And then we like work
to learn this stuff so we are current and knowledgeable so that we can put it
into practice for our own businesses and then help you.
And that's really, really important to us. And I also think understanding like
business long term is really important, like understanding how to set up your
(33:15):
business, how to maintain your business, how to pay your taxes.
Like all of these things are part of having a successful business and you need
to put all of those pieces together to kind of keep it going.
And I think that's one of the hardest parts, at least for new photographer,
excuse me, photographers getting started.
Can I say that again? Like, Julie, edit that out.
(33:38):
For new photographers getting started in this industry, there is a lot of things
that you need to do from setting up your business to like, you know,
creating your business and just all the things in between.
And we really work hard on helping you to do that and figuring out where you're
at so that we can help you where you're at.
(33:59):
Like maybe you have set up a business, but you haven't done,
you know, these other things. So absolutely.
I think there's a lot of like little things that we really focus on. Yeah.
The thing about birth in general is that there's so much, and I think it comes
back to the patriarchy, of course,
but there's so many reasons why birth workers all across the spectrum from midwives
(34:23):
to labor and delivery nurses to doulas to birth photographers exist in a world
in which Sometimes I feel like our work is undervalued and we undervalue ourselves,
right? We're not charging enough.
We're building businesses that are more like hobbies on the side versus long-term careers.
(34:43):
That's really important to me as someone who has truly built a career out of
this to help other birth workers do the same. It's amazing work.
It fills up my soul. but it's also really important that it is building my family's future,
that it is providing for me in the present, and also that I'm able to set aside
(35:04):
money every month for retirement, for my kids' education.
All of that is important. And I really want to help birth workers,
not only birth photographers, but I'm talking about home birth midwives.
I'm talking about doulas.
I'm talking about lactation consultants, all of these people that are doing
such important work that have not found a way to make this business really sustainable
(35:28):
for themselves and their family for the long term.
And so it is a goal of both of ours. It's a goal of Birth Becomes You.
It's something that's part of every aspect of our course.
We want you to take beautiful photos, absolutely.
But we also want you to have a business that's able to succeed in the long term. It's important.
(35:49):
It really is. And piecing all of these things together and being able to balance
them all is really the key to being successful for the long term. Yes, absolutely.
Well, we hope you enjoyed us talking about,
These four things that we think every new and experienced birth photographer needs to know.
But we also want to take a moment just to talk about Essence of Birth.
(36:12):
We've mentioned it throughout this episode.
This is our premier course. We've been teaching it for years now.
We've taught hundreds, maybe even over a thousand birth photographers across
the country and the world.
And registration opens up on August 19th. Like we mentioned,
the people that sign up on those first two days are going to get not only the
(36:35):
course, which is seven weeks of content, of live Zoom calls, of mentoring feedback,
but you're also going to get to be part of the marketing lab,
which we're really excited about.
We're doing that for the first time for this cohort. cohort,
we really hope that if you are in that kind of beginning phase,
maybe you've photographed 10 births, I think anything less than 20 births,
(37:00):
Essence of Birth is a great place for you to start.
If you're a doula and you want to expand your business, if you're a photographer
and you want to get into birth, or if you're totally brand new and you just
love the birth experience, then we would really love for you to consider taking Essence of Birth.
And the course content is available for life.
(37:20):
Yes. And this is a question that we get a lot. You can come back and rewatch
and reread all of this content at any time.
And I think that's really important because sometimes you're busy digesting
one piece and then it's harder to digest another.
And so it's nice to be able to come back to check your settings.
Like what were those settings that Jen and Monet said I should start with?
(37:43):
And you can just go right back and look at the settings chapter and see exactly what you need.
And all of those pieces are there. You can look them up on your phone when you're at a birth.
Those little things, when you're at a birth and you're kind of struggling or
juggling to figure out what you're supposed to do, it's nice to at least be
able to have that as something that you can access just at your fingertips.
(38:05):
Absolutely. And I had somebody tell me that just a few weeks ago.
They were like, well, I didn't know what to do. It was really dark at this birth.
I couldn't remember what my flash settings were supposed to be. I looked in the course.
And I think that's cool. I think that they knew that that was a resource that
they could use and utilize immediately. And it worked for them. So, yeah.
And I think the cool thing about Lessons of Birth is that these students that
(38:29):
take our course and start photographing births, they're more than students.
They become some of our closest friends.
A lot of them now are teaching with us and working with us professionally.
One of my students, Brittany, is now a full-time associate with me.
She backs me up for all my births.
The connections that we make in this course are a big deal. And we want people
(38:55):
to walk away and feel like they're more than just like, I just took a birth photography course.
We want them to feel like they found a community and they found a safe space
to grow, to be vulnerable, to celebrate with.
It's more than just a seven-week course. It really is this long-term community.
Every single month after you take the Essence of Birth, we have a live Zoom
(39:20):
call for certified birth photographers from all over the world.
So you can join in and get education every single month indefinitely after you
complete our course. We have a call tomorrow that, you know,
they're talking about backup photographers. How do you find a good backup photographer?
And I think that's so important.
(39:40):
But I think that's a really, really cool part of what we do is it's more than
just like checking off a course and getting some tips and some tricks.
It's about finding a landing place for you as a business owner,
as a birth worker, as a photographer, as an artist.
So we'd love for you to consider joining us. you're more than welcome to message
(40:01):
us or email us at birthbecomesher at gmail.com.
If you want to know if this course is a good fit for you, we love talking to
people about where they're at and what we think the course might or may not offer them.
We'll be honest with you. If we don't think it's a good fit,
we'll tell you. We've done that many times for people.
So if you have questions, we would love to chat with you.
(40:25):
We absolutely have done that, too. We want you to we want this course to be
like such a benefit to you as well.
So it's not going to be like that's not it's not our primary objective.
So, yeah, we're really excited to work with you and we're excited to,
like, see you grow and succeed. That's super important.
Yeah. The number one goal for sure. Yeah. Well, thank you all for being here with us today.
(40:46):
Is there anything else you want to add, Monet? Any other last minute thoughts?
I think that ultimately, with the essence of birth,
our goal has always been for people to feel like they are able to walk away
from the course with confidence, that they feel like they understand their camera,
(41:10):
they understand the birth process,
they understand how to build a business that can be sustainable for the long term.
We want every single one of our
birth photographers to be a wild success like so
many of our former students have been i love
that so many of the photographers here in denver have taken our course and are
(41:32):
now booking clients and taking beautiful images we are about sharing we are
about community we are about connection and so if that's what you're looking
for we hope you consider joining us for the fall cohort,
because that's what we're all about. I love that.
All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening. And we can't wait to see,
(41:53):
I guess not see, we can't wait to talk more next week.
But as a reminder, registration opens on August 19th.
And you can find out more details on our website. And we'll make sure to put
that in the show notes. Thanks, everybody.
Thanks. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for tuning in. Find out more about us, our courses and other tools for
(42:16):
birth photography at birthbecomesyou.com.
And make sure to follow along on Instagram and Facebook at birthbecomesyou.
And if you love listening, make sure to give us five stars on Apple Podcasts
and subscribe wherever you listen.
Thanks. Catch you on the flip side.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.